Forgiveness…

Wednesday Wisdom 😊

Inspiration this week comes from the Gospels of Mark and Matthew:

Mark 11: 25 “But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.”

Matthew 11: 28-30 “Then Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.'”

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Can you think of a time when someone wronged you? And, how you felt after the interaction was over? Your mind just keeps replaying the scene over and over again, or maybe you create pretend scenarios where you get back at the other person with words or actions. Sometimes, your anger and hurt are so strong that your face turns red, your hands may shake, or tears may be running down your face.

Or maybe you can think of a time where you made a mistake, and the resulting guilt just threatens to take over. Days, weeks, even months or years may go by and your mind still shifts back to the mistake that you made. And, the shame and regret creeps in. It ruins your self-esteem and eats away at any attempt to find peace. “I should have….” becomes your mantra as your mind replays your mistake over and over again.

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I believe that God hard-wired us to be in relationship; both in a vertical relationship with Him, and a horizontal relationship with others. Last time, we talked about love and the two foundational commandments that we are given in the Bible: love God, love others as Jesus loves us. If love is the basis for all that is important, and we are asked to love as Jesus loves, the only way that we can be successful is to have a heart that is open to both receiving and giving forgiveness.

We all make mistakes, and those mistakes invariably hurt God and hurt others. Those mistakes separate us and drive us apart, thereby going directly against how God designed us – so they ultimately also hurt us. God’s mercies are new each day, and the gift of Jesus allows each of us access to the forgiveness that enables us to reconnect in relationship and ultimately find healing. We have to decide to accept and share this Grace, and let God heal us from our pain.

It is almost like we stand at a crossroads, and are able to decide which direction we’d like to take:

• We can remain in denial or self-blame
• We can choose bitterness and stubbornly hold onto the anger and pain
• We can intentionally move down the path of forgiveness in order to grieve, empathize, find peace, learn to trust again and reconnect in relationship

The third option seems so right and so easy, and yet it is often so very hard.

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I could share a lot of stories from my life where my stubbornness kept me from seeking the peace found in forgiveness, but I think the most recent example is when I broke my leg. I remember getting so angry at my doctor because what he told me was going to happen at my first appointment was not at all my healing experience. I also remember getting very angry at myself – my own body – when it refused to heal. Finally, there was a piece of my heart that just hurt. I was haunted by the thought that either God didn’t love me or I wasn’t important enough for Him to heal.

Every day that I hurt, I got just a little bit angrier. One day, about 9 months post accident, I went to the doctor for a check up. When I asked him why my leg wasn’t healing, he looked at me and said “you have skinny ankles and high expectations”. That day was a turning point for me. My anger boiled over and later than night I beat my crutch so hard on the floor that I bent it. Bending my crutch didn’t fix my problems, but it did show me that I was in a very unhealthy mental place. It forced me to recognize that I was at a crossroads, and helped me to make the intentional choice to get “unstuck” and move into forgiveness.

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It’s been more than three years since I made that choice. My leg still hurts, and it likely will never be the same, but my heart has moved through the grieving process. Somewhere along the way, I figured out that forgiveness was not about finding answers, rather it was about accepting my circumstances and knowing that God loves me and walks with me through it all. God doesn’t always choose to take away our pain, but I also don’t think that He wastes it either. When we open our hearts to forgive, our pain becomes a tool for personal growth as we allow Jesus to move through us and rebuild us. The healing process then holds the power of hope as we find strength and purpose in it 😊

Beautiful, Awkward Grace…

Wednesday Wisdom 🙂

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Inspiration this week comes from Hebrews 4:16

“So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”

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The Holy Spirit sometimes has to say the same thing to me multiple times before I figure out His message. Whether I miss it the first time, or don’t listen to understand, the Spirit does eventually get my attention 😉 This week we celebrated my favorite brunette’s 20th birthday. As I sit and think about all of things that I am grateful for, being a mom tops the list. Not just because my children bring me great joy, but also because God uses them to teach me so very much.

Ashley Grace played a huge role in bringing me back to Christ during a time in my life when I faltered and got *stuck*. The work of the Holy Spirit through her opened my eyes to the vastness of God’s grace. It is humbling and beautiful to watch Jesus move through the Spirit in the life of a teenager. It can be life-altering when that teenager is your’s. I had always thought that my faith needed to be perfect in order to honor God. As a result, I worked really hard but constantly fell short. I ended up tired and discouraged. My daughter taught me that grace fills the gap. It is perfectly and beautifully awkward because Jesus promises to always meet me where I am – not where I should be. Grace is what helps me to move toward where I should be, and it’s a good thing that I need divine interference to get there!

When we give our hearts to Christ, we never walk alone. Life becomes a beautiful, awkward journey full of grace.

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As we move through the season of Advent, I pray that each of us remembers the gift of grace. It’s available to everyone, and it’s given freely to all those who believe. It never runs out and comes in the form of peace, hope, love, and forgiveness. We can look for it in a variety of places, but we’ll only find it in One.

Our earthly days are sometimes hard, but they are better when we walk in faith. And, (best of all) we are guaranteed a good ending! Jesus did that for us and nothing and no one can take that away. We live as awkward people in an awkward world. The Good News is that we have a gracious God with an unending supply of awkward grace that meets each and every one of us just where we are. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews reminds us to come boldly to the throne of God. There we will find mercy and grace when we need it most – complete with free delivery to wherever we are at the moment!

This year, celebrate the Christmas season with defiant hope because Christ came for us and will never leave us lonely – we simply need to accept that joy comes from what is happening inside of our hearts through Jesus rather than being contingent on the circumstances that we face on earth. That’s the beauty of grace.

As I look back twenty years ago, it seems fitting that my favorite farmer and I gave her “grace” as her middle name 🙂 Happy Birthday to my beautiful girl whose heart overflows with Jesus’ beautiful, awkward grace!

 

Consider it pure joy…

My favorite brunette provides a guest blog this morning as she wraps up her summer internship in Denver, CO and prepares to head back to college 🙂

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Inspiration this week comes from James 1:2-4

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything,”

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I spent my summer volunteering at a free summer camp for kids in Denver’s inner-city housing projects. It was a completely eye-opening and humbling experience— if you’d ever like to have your assumptions and worldview challenged over arts and crafts, I whole-heartedly recommend seeking out one of my kiddos. The beautiful thing about these kids is even though they’ve been through more trials and hardships than the most embittered adult, they still want to let people in and share their hearts. During my 8 weeks at the camp this summer, the way they talked about incredibly heavy topics, like the deportation of a parent or financial stress or violence in their neighborhood, as normal, pervasive facts of life broke my heart.

In the face of challenges such as those faced by the kids, the verses above can seem almost like an empty platitude, an inept way to rationalize suffering in a world created by a good, good God.

Why does a good God allow suffering and evil to plague the lives of His people?

I don’t know the answer to this, and you probably don’t either. Yes, He uses trials to refine us, as iron sharpens iron, and struggles do help us to empathize more fully with Jesus’ experience in this world, but for me, these truths don’t entirely alleviate the holes left by loss and hurt in my life. While we will never be able to truly understand God’s plan for why we or someone we love are suffering, we shouldn’t just throw our hands up in the air and do nothing about our situation.

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A German martyr named Alfred Delp once said that while it is not in our power to stop our own suffering or that of others, it is our responsibility to respond in a way that allows the seeds that God plants through hard times to “fall upon fertile ground”. This, for me, taps into the partnership aspect of our faith– as we suffer, we walk alongside Jesus and listen to what life was like for He who took on our sins and as we do, He welcomes our laments and sorrows and complaints with the compassionate ear of someone who has personally known our pain. This companionship and the peace that comes with laying our burdens at His feet is the only way that I consider my tribulations joy.

As I reflect on my summer, the overwhelming emotion from it all is joy. I owe this entirely to the kids I spent it with, the same ones who put on impromptu rap battles and K-Pop dance parties, who planned and executed a water gun sneak-attack on me and the other staff in the halls of our building, and who upon learning that I would share my lunch with whoever asked nicely, would put in increasingly complicated orders for the next day (I’m talking requests like: pb&j with two different kinds of jelly, crunchy peanut butter and cut diagonally). These kids teach a lesson to us all to seize the joy in every moment of every day and to appreciate the small eyes in the storms of our lives as gifts from God.

Consider it pure joy…

Choose Your Experience…

Wednesday Wisdom 🙂

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Inspiration this week comes from Matthew 11: 28-30

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

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I walked out of my house into the garage Sunday afternoon to find a piece of paper that read in big letters Choose Your Experience. It was a college flyer that must have missed the trash can and landed on the ground. I’d been praying for guidance as I pondered something difficult. It’s always interesting to see the unique ways that God responds to my prayers 🙂

Choose Your Experience

When I was a child, I used to pray for outcomes — a win in the swimming pool or help on a test, or sometimes I prayed that I wouldn’t have to do something that I didn’t want to do. As an adult, my prayers have changed. Today, it is rare for me to pray for a specific outcome. Instead, my prayers are more like a conversation where I search for guidance, love, and peace.

This change occurred when I realized that we are all meant to walk through challenges during our time on earth. It isn’t about the challenge – it’s about the experience.

Life isn’t easy. Sometimes it hurts. That’s okay. I don’t pray for “outcomes” anymore because I know that I am meant to experience it all. Instead, I pray for Jesus to be with me on the journey because I know that my attitude determines the love, peace, hope and joy that I carry in my heart as I walk through each challenge.

It isn’t about the what. It’s about the how.

Choose your experience.

If we are meant to experience everything, then that phrase says to me that my choice determines not what happens, but rather how I respond and react to what happens. My experience changes when I choose to ask Jesus to walk the journey with me.

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I’ve pondered the above scripture from the Gospel of Matthew often over the past year.

How can a yoke be easy to bear?

I live on a farm. While we do not use yokes and oxen in 2018, I’ve seen a horse pull a plow. It isn’t easy and it does not take long for the animal to break out into a sweat from the exertion necessary to pull the plow and work the ground. The yoke provides the connection. It doesn’t stop the work – rather – it orchestrates it.

It came to me on Sunday afternoon that when I put on Jesus’ yoke, the work load does not lesson. In fact, if I truly answer the call, it often increases. But, the burden becomes easy to bear as I open my heart in faith to Jesus’ love- peace – hope – joy.

It is possible to experience difficult times with the peace that enables a purposeful joy. It happens when we choose to experience life on earth with God’s grace in our hearts. When we take Jesus’ yoke upon ourselves, it brings the strength that lightens the burden. The burden may not change, but our ability to bear it does.

Next week we celebrate Christmas. Many will celebrate it with the joy of family – Some will celebrate it in the midst of difficult times. We all are invited to celebrate it with the peace that passes all understanding and creates rest for the soul. This peace comes in the form of the Emmanuel – the Christ child – who yokes us to our Heavenly Father during our earthly journey.

 

Making Memories in ‘God’s Country’…

Every summer for the past four years, my favorite cowgirl/chef and I have taken our horses north to the Nebraska Sandhills for a long weekend of riding.  I laugh that those few days allow me to search for peace and quiet amidst the relative chaos of my everyday life…

There exists a quiet beauty in the Nebraska Sandhills that soothes my soul…

Megan was 8 years old when we visited the first time, and our annual trip has become something that she looks forward to each year.  We travel up to the Lake Calamus area located near Burwell, Nebraska and stay with Sherry Jarvis at Heart In Your Hand Horsemanship.  I met Sherry about six years ago and find her to be a woman of tremendous natural horse savvy.

Sherry is a great mentor to Megan…

I would like to share my favorite pictures from our three days in the SandHills.  Hopefully they will provide a visual picture of our great weekend!

My little cowgirl loves her horse–they make great partners!

Megan also has a very special friend who (along with her grandma) meets us for our days of riding…

I love to watch Meg develop great communication and feel with her horse. This builds confidence and focus that will help her all throughout her life…

The beauty that they find together on those hills teaches her to respect the land and work hard to care for it…

Cooling off in the lake…I had never ‘swum’ while on horseback before.  Dandy doesn’t quite share my All American Swimmer status but he did a pretty good job…

The wild flowers were just starting to bloom…

The river was also gorgeous…

It’s always good to have a cowgirl with just a little bit of attitude :), along with—

no apparent need to keep her boots on…

I hope that each one of you has something special which soothes your soul and renews your faith.